Kelihos Botnet Operator Pleads Guilty in Federal Court
The 38-year-old Russian national operated several botnets and infected thousands of systems with malware.
Peter Yuryevich Levashov, who operated the Kelihos botnet, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Hartford, Conn., to charges related to criminal activities including harvesting login credentials, distributing bulk spam e-mails, and installing ransomware and other malicious software. From the late 1990s until his arrest in April 2017, the 38-year-old Levashov controlled and operated multiple botnets, including Storm, Waledac, and Kelihos.
According to court documents, Levashov distributed spam and other malware, such as banking Trojans and ransomware, and advertised the Kelihos botnet spam and malware services to others. As part of his criminal activity, Levashov, who also used the aliases “Petr Levashov,” “Peter Severa,” “Petr Severa,” and “Sergey Astakhov,” sold and leased malware software and services to other criminals, and engaged in buying, selling, and trading personal information harvested through the botnets and malware.
A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, Levashov was arrested in Barcelona on April 7, 2017. He remains in U.S. custody pending sentencing, which is scheduled for Sept. 6, 2019.
Read here for more.
Black Hat Europe returns to London Dec 3-6 2018 with hands-on technical Trainings, cutting-edge Briefings, Arsenal open-source tool demonstrations, top-tier security solutions and service providers in the Business Hall. Click for information on the conference and to register.
About the Author
You May Also Like
Transform Your Security Operations And Move Beyond Legacy SIEM
Nov 6, 2024Unleashing AI to Assess Cyber Security Risk
Nov 12, 2024Securing Tomorrow, Today: How to Navigate Zero Trust
Nov 13, 2024The State of Attack Surface Management (ASM), Featuring Forrester
Nov 15, 2024Applying the Principle of Least Privilege to the Cloud
Nov 18, 2024